"I don't know what the growth might be in the future, or how many students there are right now who are otherwise eligible and have good projects lined up but unable to take advantage of it," Lewis writes in an e-mail message.

Weissman says he hopes the program can serve as a model for other University centers that might wish to establish internship programs abroad.

International Long-Distance

Advertisement

The Weissman program requires that students already have confirmation of their internship offer before they apply in the late winter.

While the Weissmans and OCS staff are closely involved in making sure participants' internships are a success, they are on their own before being accepted. Interns say they were on their own for the most challenging part of the process--finding and applying for internships.

"Jane Pavese and her assistants were receptive to questions, but it was made clear that it was our duty to find the internship," says Katheryn M. Hayes '00. "Since it is a competition, and one of the requirements is that this internship be specific to you and special for you, you really need to go out and find something unique that's going to make a difference in your life."

In the case of Hayes, who spent the summer before last working for a documentary film company in Buenos Aires, the experience was a crash course in adapting--both for her and her employer.

"The film company was having funding issues, so I ended up doing a lot of atypical things," Hayes says. "I helped with casting, and I sat in on meetings with producers and music technicians and other writers. I even learned how to tango in the director's garage."